This year, Nintendo is following in the footsteps of Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus by launching a paid online service for the Switch. The fee will grant Switch owners access to multiplayer primarily but not all games will require the subscription, as free to play titles will be excluded.

This means that free to play games on the Nintendo Switch, like Fortnite, Arena of Valor and Paladins, will continue to be free and won’t require the subscription for online play. However, titles like Splatoon 2, Dark Souls Remastered and Diablo 3 will requite a Switch Online subscription.

This information was confirmed by publisher Tencent in a statement sent to Variety. Tencent wanted to let it be known that Arena of Valor will continue to be freely playable even after the Switch Online service launches in September.

Nintendo’s Switch Online service will launch late next month. A monthly subscription will cost $3.99, meanwhile three months of membership will cost $7.99. A yearly subscription is $19.99 and finally, there will be a ‘family membership’ option, allowing you to pay $34.99 a year and have Switch Online functionality across 8 Nintendo accounts on different consoles.

KitGuru Says: Microsoft and Sony give a similar free pass for multiplayer in F2P games, so it is nice to see Nintendo adopting the same standards.